Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

The willow is too close to the house.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Bark louder, little dog.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The revolution will be supervised.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

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Open Thread

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

***Update*** Due to a miscommunication, I believed (my fault rather than his) that IndieTarheel took the pic that he sent. The top picture was in fact taken by Flickr user sweber4507. I apologize for any confusion.

To clarify my policy for this series, I prefer to run pictures sent in by the photographers themselves, as the email indicates consent. Thanks again to everyone who has contributed so far.

IndieTarheel sweber4507, Lower Lewis River Falls, WA.

lower-lewis-river-falls-wa

Mr. Furious, The Upstate.

the-upstate

Email me a link to your one or two favorite pics on a photo site like Flickr (do not send the image itself please) and I will put up favorites in open threads. Send a short caption if you want one.

Click on the photos for a link to the photographer’s website. To see all photo threads, click on ‘photo blogging’ at the bottom of the post.

If your computer cannot read our email links at top right, my email is (remove the zeroes): portus0jackson0ii at yahoo dot com.

Reader Interactions

52Comments

  3. 3.

    Simp

    Fabulous photo IndieTarheel. Exposure is spot on, lighting is amazing.

    The Gifford Pinchot forest is my playground and I’ve shot that photo many times, including one with me standing buck naked beside that tree on the ledge looking down river.

    A bit of a drive from there but check out Cedar Flats in the area (112 acres of preserved old growth – western red cedar, doug fir and hemlock). I’ll have to dig up one of my photos from in there and send it to Tim.

  7. 7.

    Violet

    Wow, that top photo is amazing. It looks like a painting, almost.

    I love all the leaves sticking to the rocks in the second one. There’s a real sense of movement in it.

    Excellent, both of them. And the series.

  8. 8.

    WereBear

    Thanks, IndieTarheel. That top photo is my new wallpaper on my iTouch. (Sorry, Steve Jobs. I just can’t type “iPod touch” anymore, especially on the device in question.)

  11. 11.

    charles johnson

    Harry Reid appears to be days from getting health care reform to the floor. Which no senate majority leader has done in 50 years. So why are whiners whining that he’s a terrible majority leader? Is it just that they’re clueless about how hard the process is? Or is there some valid reason?

  13. 13.

    Comrade Darkness

    Can I just say wow. That first one is the photo embodiment of every American Landscape masterpiece.

    And, man my pictures suck.

  16. 16.

    Comrade Darkness

    @JenJen: We received our bracelets at 7am and were told if we’d like to be guaranteed to see Palin we should remain in line all day

    Event planning FAIL. Why the hell hand out bracelets in that case. Why not let people lead their lives at least part of the day?

  17. 17.

    agorabum

    bleg question:
    I have a Canon PowerShot SX110 IS, so it has SLR features (but fixed lens) and manual adjustable ISO features to change exposure times.
    But to avoid overwhelming the sensors with light, if I want a long exposure of water in the day (to catch that sort of wispy, misty look of moving water), what are the good settings for the ISO, exposure, apature, and/or focal length to get that kind of result?

  18. 18.

    Comrade Darkness

    @cleek: Please tell us some serious “dodge and burn” style photoshopping as well as dynamic range retooling were involved. Otherwise I, at least, haz a sad.

  19. 19.

    JenJen

    @Comrade Darkness: If these were concert tickets, the crowd would’ve revolted. Rock Fans beat Palin Fans any day of the week.

    I love the part where the poor girl effectively says “Well so what? Sarah read a bunch of cards at the debate that McCain’s idiot staffers gave her. It’s not her fault. She didn’t mean any of that stuff. And even if she did it doesn’t change the fact that she is FRAWESOME”

    Is our children learning?

  23. 23.

    Mark S.

    @JenJen:

    This girl need to learn the art of paragraph breaks.

    So I didn’t read it, but I looked at the pictures. Does Sarah sign her name “S Pal”?

  26. 26.

    Comrade Darkness

    @JenJen: Is our children learning?

    Well, not homonyms, anyway, at that xtian private school she goes to. (Maybe the school is afraid it will make the kids teh ghey… arr arr)

  27. 27.

    Violet

    @JenJen: I don’t agree with the girl’s politics, but imho it does kind of stink that Nora O’Donnell did that to a 17 year old. The girl isn’t even old enough to vote. Her story about how they faked the shot, making it look like they just walked up to her is probably how things are typically done, but it’s another reason why the MSM sucks.

    That part about whatever Sarah said being John McCain’s fault is hilarious though. Nothing is ever, EVER Sarah’s fault.

  28. 28.

    jeffreyw

    @agorabum: Here is the “meta” page from the top photo, most of the info you seek can be found there. Note the -1 EV exposure bias setting. Naturally, the amount of light at the time of the exposure is going to be a major factor, and that it was taken very late in the day per the caption on the photo. Clicking on the pic will get you to the flickr page, and clicking from that page on the “more properties” link will get you to the page I linked to above.

  29. 29.

    winguts to iraq

    that first one has to have some post-processing on that. no way that is a “natural” picture.

  30. 30.

    Trollhattan

    @agorabum#17

    A few suggestions to try:

    If the camera is threaded for filters, get a very dark neutral density filter. Set it at your lowest available ISO (i.e. take it off auto-ISO), put it in “A” mode and stop down the lens–but not too much. Small sensor cameras experience diffraction effects beginning at f: 8 or 11 or so, so it’s better to get this effect via an ND filter and keep the lens in its sharp range (generally one or two stops down from wide open).

    Using a very stout tripod, turn off image stabilization and employ a remote or a self-timer. Bracket the exposure a lot, because cameras respond unpredictably to long exposure times. For an image like the one above with bright light and shadow areas, it might be necessary to stack images using HDR techniques.

  33. 33.

    JenJen

    @Violet: See, I don’t know. The girl looked a lot younger than 17 to me, and at first it rubbed me the wrong way. But O’Donnell must have learned her age before they went with that shot, and I think if you’re 17, a high school senior on the verge of voting age, there’s nothing wrong with a reporter asking you a pretty direct question about a shirt you’re wearing at a high-profile event.

    Judging from her blog, she’s not a beginner, she wants to be engaged in the political process, has very strong opinions, and she can handle herself. I think she’s being whiny. Even for a kid, I guess.

  34. 34.

    Violet

    @JenJen:
    Yeah, I kind of agree. But at the same time, most of the people there were likely over voting age and had they picked one of them, that wouldn’t have opened up O’Donnell/MSNBC to any criticism of picking on a kid. I think it’s just stupid for Nora O’Donnell to pick this girl given those circumstances.

    I don’t know…the whole thing seemed, even in the video, to be kind of staged to me. And then this girl’s account backs that up. And I can totally see any number of reporters trying to ask gotcha questions so their clips get played over and over. It’s how the media works – it’s about eyeballs and ratings. Heck, Nora O’Donnell will probably get a bonus for that. And the fact that it’s on the back of a teenager, not an adult, just kind of rubs me the wrong way, no matter how politically engaged said teenager is.

    I’m not trying to defend this girl. But I am disgusted with Nora O’Donnell and the media in general. I think that’s what bugs me the most about this whole clip.

  35. 35.

    Tim F.

    @agorabum:

    There are things that you can do and things that you can’t do. You can buy a solid tripod, set a very small aperture (high numbers; be careful of diffraction effects at the highest aperture number) and set the lowest ISO possible, e.g. 100. It is possible that your camera will accept screw-on filters; if so buy a neutral density filter (ND4 or ND8) to allow long exposures in bright sunlight. You can take multiple exposures at different speeds (‘bracketing’) and use an HDR application like, e.g., Photoshop to make the sky, river and shadows all look well-exposed.

    However, inexpensive digicam optics will always fall short of a large sensor with premium glass in front of it. This shouldn’t bother you too much; every camera setup has things it can and can’t do. I can’t carry a DSLR with me everywhere I go. I wouldn’t dream of tossing an expensive E-P1 in my bag every time I leave the house.

    Keep the PowerShot with you. Use it all the time. Practice is free with digital, so try every manual control until you get comfortable with what it does. You will quickly figure out whether or not you need to upgrade to something bigger, and even if you do, the small camera you have mastered will probably still go everywhere with you and take shots that you love.

  38. 38.

    Violet

    @JenJen:
    LOL. Good point. She said on her blog she goes to some Christian school. Maybe the Sarah Palin book signing day was a school holiday? :P

    @Mark S.:
    It said something about the stimulus. I can’t remember exactly – it’s on the video.

  39. 39.

    Chat Noir

    @Violet: I think it was about the TARP bailout. Norah O’Donnell pointed out to the girl that during the campaign last year, Palin supported it.

  42. 42.

    Comrade Darkness

    @Mark S.: It said something like, there was this 700 billion $ bailout and all I got was this sucky t-shirt. I thought Nora was going to say, you know that bailout was the Bush Administration, right? But she went for the, you know Saracudda was for the bailout? and quoted Sarah and McCain. Left the Sarah fan girl stammering. Her gay brother, or whoever that was with her, tried to bail her out by pointing out that “they” changed what the bailout was for, so of course, it was okay to be against it after they were for it. But that’s bullshit. The bailout was a free ticket, it was written as a free ticket from the very beginning, there were no specifics in the bill to “change” later. So family fail all around.

  46. 46.

    Mark S.

    She is trying to use my shirt against me. I was so shocked by the craftiness she had that I was truly stumped.

    Was she read her rights? “Anything on your t-shirt can be used against you by the liberal media.”

  47. 47.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Mark S.: Very nice. I don’t give a rat’s ass except now this girl will have more public exposure than she deserves. A Palin in the making, as it were. Bah.

    These two pics are simply stunning. I am in awe.

  48. 48.

    Trollhattan

    @Paul#43

    What’s that about pie?

    Inverted Breitbart: I’m enough of a tool that I’ll withold this here video that is of vast interest and importance to the nation, in order to have the AG be my errand boy (heh-heh, he said…) and at the same time subvert the justice department’s independence. Wolverines, also!

    Next: whitey tape redux.

  49. 49.

    mcc

    I think this is important news. The Wyden “Free Choice” bill (which opens up the health care exchange to a much wider group of people) will be considered as a floor amendment to the health care bill. When this was a standalone bill it had the support of a surprising number of Republicans (which isn’t to say they’ll chicken out when push comes to shove).

  50. 50.

    SteveinSC

    I don’t know if this is old news, but on Scarface this morning macho diaper man Vitter was asked would the dems have 60 votes to shut off debate, and the diaper man said yes, he thought so. The comment was made without emotion, like it was a done deal as far as the Repuke’s are concerned. Floor fights on amendments later.

    By the way the pictures capture the raw youth of the West (top picture) and the ancient, civilized, serene East. Both great pictures. For live action versions of the latter, see Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day-L.

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